The Orange Dress

Neither of us had been to Puerto Rico before, but when some encyclopedia publishing company decided at the last minute to cancel its yearly outing, Laura's school district managed to pick up a Spring Break Vacation Special Package at a price impossible to pass up: Four days in a posh resort at a cost not too much more than a week's worth of mortgage payments, air fare included. Laura did have some concerns about the flying: this was the first time we'd be airborne without our kiddies. Three nights prior to our departure she'd watched over my shoulder as I sent off an e-mail to my most trustworthy brother containing instructions that should anything dire happen, we'd expect him to care for our children as if they were his own.

Actually, I wouldn't have minded staying home. I'm not a comfortable tourist. "I don't really know any of your teacher friends," I'd complained to Laura. "And the few I almost know don't seem to like me much."

"Nonsense," Laura had scoffed. "All the teachers think highly of you. You just don't give anyone a chance. Besides, we can be off on our own most of the time. And you said that golf course looked really good."

The flight was full. Laura sat on the aisle, I squeezed into the middle, and to my right a thin Puerto Rican boy fiddled with a pack of Marlboro Golds. Not a boy, really; he was probably eighteen, but very slight and nervous, and he spoke barely any English, just enough to ask me every twenty minutes or so if we were almost there yet. The rest of the time he played with the cigarette pack. I thought about making some light comment about how he shouldn't smoke�not that it was any of my business; it just seemed the friendly yet responsible thing to do. "You know smoking is bad for your health." Something like that. The kid just seemed too nice to be sucking raw smoke into his youthful lungs. But I'm not the kind to interfere, I've got my own family to care for and worry about, and anyway I know fewer than ten words of Spanish, none of them cigarettes, bad, or health. The boy caressed the pack of cigarettes as he stared out the window, and Laura and I held hands, read from our Virginia Woolf and Tom Robbins, and whispered to each other what our children might be doing right at that instant. "Obliviously innocent and safe," we reassured each other.

Then I made the mistake of telling Laura about my dream of the night before: I'd been standing in the doorway of a small-town bank building, and an old-fashioned, cream colored station wagon had come careening around the downhill corner, flipped over, and then, semi-crushed, righted itself on the curb. I could see that the station wagon was crammed with passengers, but it took me an instant to react. I rushed up to the automobile and yanked open the door. "Get out, get out!" I yelled. "She's gonna blow."

"Did you actually say that?" Laura asked.

"Well, in the dream," I said. "Though I did feel the slightest bit foolish. Maybe she wasn't going to blow. But the thing is, I'd acted courageously. Do you think if someone acts courageously in dreams that means he'll be brave in real life?"

"Oh, honey, you're my brave boy," Laura whispered, squeezing my hand. "You're brave and kind."

I didn't tell Laura that one of the passengers in the car was a small girl of three or four, and I'd pulled her out and held her to my heart, and that there had been no driver in the car, and that one of the women passengers had scolded me: You should have been more careful!

"Did she blow?" Laura asked.

"I don't know," I answered. "The dream ended before that could happen."

A few minutes later the plane dipped low over San Juan. The fidgety boy with the Marlboro Golds yelped, one quick, puppy chirp, and then he turned to me. "Be you full?" he asked me. An anticipatory grin brightened his face. I nodded. Satisfied, the boy turned to study the final descent.

In truth I thought San Juan from the air seemed at best ordinary�mundane if not ugly. The skyscape was a hodgepodge of ramshackle buildings, cheap high rises, and crude hotels whose architects might have done better sticking to edge-of-the-desert gas stations. The unkempt homes and run-down businesses had a dirty, airy aimlessness to them which seemed at best a notch or two above squalor. As the airplane made its final rush towards the airport I squinted my eyes, and the resulting swirl of bright colors mixed with the bleached, earth tone buildings to make a milkshake of the city. I thought of the Tori Amos song and of Laura's raspberry nipples, and I felt a little better, a little less fretful, though clearly this was not an American city�it still looked as if it might have been designed by a kindergarten class fresh from finger-painting and eager to begin recess.

Our resort was a bumpy hour or so outside of the city� wrought iron gates greeted us, and an immaculately groomed golf course, and atop a small hill the sprawling upscale hotel of many wings and multi levels�an uneasy cross between fairy tale castle and suburban strip mall. While awaiting check-in we were served the smoothest possible pina-coladas, peach daiquiris, and tequila sunrises. Opposite the main desk a wall of lobby windows afforded us panoramic views of the lovely crescent beach, its sunny postcard sand, its almost endless expanse of turquoise water, its perfectly cloudless azure sky, its palm-tree-swaying tropical breezes. The lilting winds played lightly over the well-oiled, bronze-skinned, immodestly recumbent bodies of half a hundred well-to-do college kids or honeymooning movie stars. So relaxed and at home they lay, breathing the adventure-laden air, drinking in the golden sunshine, listening to the serene waves whispering secrets and promises of sultry nights to come, that it almost seemed they weren't alive, that they were part of a painting, a novel, a daydream. Laura and I strolled through the elegantly appointed lobby until our noses nearly pressed against the spotless glass, and we peered out at that different world. "Oh, it looks so ..." Laura said, as I slipped my credit card into my wallet.

"Yes," I agreed. "But where are all the ordinary people?"

"In Orlando standing in line," she laughed, "Or shoveling snow and shivering in Chicago."

Then she giggled like a school-girl, and then she kissed me�not a school-girl kiss at all but something passionate, tropical, and dangerous. I shivered.

One of those long moments later we were still standing there holding hands, and my eyes flitted across the curves and contours of the sun-bathers. Surely the simple goal of that perfect flesh was to swell at once recklessly and artfully into small covers of colorful cloth. Further out, a pair of topless children danced and squealed in the slight surf, light tickled small waves, a sailboat slipped past the languid bob of a small orange buoy, and a pretty woman replaced the strap of her barely significant bathing suit. The man next to her touched his finger to her spine. Perhaps, I thought, they'd almost gathered up strength enough to go inside for one last earth-shaking fuck before supper.

"There's a dinner reception out by the pool," Laura said. We were in our room. Our luggage had been delivered ahead of us. The bed was so wide. A slow ceiling fan spun the indoor air, touching it up just right, and Laura, wearing naught but panties, stood before the huge mirror brushing her hair. "This is going to be so fun," she said.

"What should I wear?" I asked.

"Anything," she said. "It's casual. Everything here is casual. Shorts, a shirt. Sandals. Whatever you want. I'm going to put on my comfy black slacks and that sleeveless black top."

"Slacks?" I said. "Shouldn't you be wearing a colorful skirt? This is an island, after all."

"I didn't pack any skirts," Laura said.

"Oh." I was disappointed. "I was hoping you'd show off your legs," I told her, "Maybe one of your pretty skirts� with no panties on underneath. Isn't such attire required by the Unofficial Rules of Puerto Rico?"

Laura laughed. "Puerto Rico has no rules, unofficial or otherwise." She stepped into her slacks and sandals, and snugged her tight black top over her bare breasts. Her nipples made lovely little dents which I was about to test for resiliency and so on, when there was a soft but firm knock at our door. It was a young woman. Not a woman, really�a teen aged girl.

"Turn down service?" The girl's whispery voice was elegant, clear, breathless, and yet almost bashful.

"Um, we were just about to leave," I said, charmed and flustered by the graceful lilt of her question and the hint of amusement in her slight smile.

But Laura said something in quick, graceful Spanish, apparently accepting the girl's offer.

We watched the young woman fold down the coverlet. She moved with ease and unhurried efficiency. As she leaned forward, the short skirt of her uniform pulled upward, showing us the smooth stretch of her long legs, more and more coffee-colored skin. Abruptly she bent over to pick up the pillows for plumping, and we saw the beginnings of her perfect bottom, the slim crescents of ass, the brief panties of deep, dark, rain-soaked red. Done, she turned to us and offered a timid smile. "Chocolates?" she said, holding out the small, silver-foiled box for Laura to take. And then she left.

"Cute girl," Laura said. She handed me the box of chocolates. Inside I saw a square of dark and one of light.

"Shall we try them now?" I asked.

"Not now," Laura said. "Those are for bedtime. Let's get out to that reception before all the food is gone. Some of those teachers can be real pigs."

My mind dwelled still on the tender curves of that hotel maid's bottom, the breezy humidity of her voice. "Do you think they have turn down service every night?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Laura said. "Maybe if I weren't here you could ask her if she offered a deluxe turn-down service. 'Oh, senor,'" Laura mimicked, mixing timidity and tease just right, "'I shall have to turn you down, no?'"

I put the box of chocolates on the plumped pillow, and we strolled out into the hotel proper, passing the main lobby, various lounges, the casino, assorted gift shops. "But the question is, would you turn her down?" Laura said, and then she stopped at the entrance to a small boutique. "Maybe later we can find something in here for your mom." She entered the shop. "A gift for taking care of ...." She'd paused to finger the first dress on a display rack near the entryway.

"That's what you should be wearing," I told her. Bright orange swirls of starburst chased each other down this slip of a dress. Sheer and almost strapless, it had a playful fringe of orange tassels along the bottom hem.

"Pretty," Laura admitted.

"Shall I get it for you? Please?"

"No," Laura decided. "It's too thin. I mean I'm not thin enough. I wouldn't look good in it. It's a dress for a 15 year old girl."

With that she walked out of the store. "Come on," she said. "Let's see what they have to eat. Last one to the pool is a rotten egg."

I soon caught up with her. "I think you'd look great in that dress," I told her.

"Thanks for thinking that," she said.

Poolside we found a plethora of food. Tubs of icy fresh shrimp. Plump oysters on their shells. Huge mushrooms stuffed with crab. We stopped at one of the serving tables where a dark man used his wide knife to slice us handsome portions of juicy grouper. We ate with our fingers while we watched two spitted piglets, stretched, darkened and dripping, rotate over red-hot embers.

"Poor little piggies," Laura said, "I can't wait to sink my teeth into them."

"And look at all that dessert," I pointed out to Laura. "Melons and berries, flans and flambes, scoops of luscious ice cream mounded into huge coconut shells."

"That's for after dancing," Laura told me. "But first more of that sublime champagne." I lifted two more goblets from one of the silver trays. The wine was light and elusive, like a pretty woman's perfume. We sipped and smiled, and somehow the sun had set, and Laura's eyes twinkled in starlight. "Dancing," she said. "Let's be wild."

"You know I'm not much of a dancer."

"You'll do fine."

And I did. At least I felt I did. I jounced and swayed and let the heart of my body follow the heat of Laura's slippery rhythms. During the fast numbers sweat flew like laughter, and her dark hair shouted at the sky, and during the slow tunes we moved like a quiet automobile parked above the pond at an out-of-the way lover's lane.

"Shall we walk along the water?" Laura asked.

We had the beach to ourselves. Maybe it was early. Maybe it was late. Maybe it was between time. The wind whispered to the waves. The sand, warm as excited sex skin, smoothed our soles. As if amused at our many stops for kisses quick and slow, the stars smiled down at us. "We'll show them," we said. And we did.

By the time we got back to the gathering, the food had been cleared away and the musicians had packed up, but a few people were still chatting. "I don't want to go in yet," Laura said. "The night is so young! I was hoping to do more dancing."

"There's always basketball," I said. We'd come upon an outdoor court a shoulder-high hedge removed from the pool area, and I'd found a basketball�well, something about the size of a basketball, but smooth, whether with use or by design it was too dark to tell. The ball bounced, albeit with a wobble.

"A little one-on-one?" I suggested. Laura smiled. I dribbled out to the top of the circle and put up my jump shot. I'd played basketball in high school and some in college, and usually I knew right at the instant of release whether a shot was going in. This one felt perfect.

"Forgot to allow for the Puerto Rican moon." I pointed up at the slim crescent. "It's more underneath than I'm used to."

Laura chuckled. "More like too much champagne," she said. "Flip it here, let me try."

She bounced the ball twice, hopped forward on both feet, and pushed the ball two-handed towards the basket. The ball glanced off the backboard straight through the net. "See?" Laura said, "I've got basketball in my blood and bones. And you've got a P!"

"Huh? No way. You only get a letter for missing someone's shot."

"P for pig," Laura insisted, "Don't argue... Puerto Rican rules!"

"I thought you said there were no rules."

"I was talking about dress codes," Laura said.

"No fair," I said.

"Fair as it's going to get," Laura countered.

"Okay, but if I beat you will you let me buy you the orange dress?"

"You won't beat me."

"But if I do?"

"Shut up and shoot," she said. "You've got a P, and come to think of it, so have I." With that we set off for the hotel to find an indoor bathroom.

We found one just off the casino lobby. "Ooh, gambling," Laura said when she came out of the rest room. "Come on, let's lose our nest eggs."

"You know I'm not much of a gambler."

"Oh, honey... if you gamble as well as you dance we'll be rich before bedtime."

"What about the basketball, the game of pig?"

"If you gamble as well as you play basketball, maybe you'd better go to bed right now."

"I thought..."

"Just for a few minutes," Laura said. "I'm going to bet everything we own on R. E. D. To ward off sunburn. Come on. It'll be so much fun." Laura led me past the burly, stern-faced guard.

"He seemed interested in you," I mentioned to Laura when we were out of earshot.

"Who?" Laura asked.

"That guard over there." I motioned with my chin. "The one with all the guns and walkie-talkies on his belt." His eyes were still on Laura.

She grinned. "He probably knows I'm a pro."

"Pro?"

"Professional card shark, silly. What did you think I meant?"

I grinned. "At least he knows you have nothing up your sleeves." I ran my fingers over the goosebumps which freckled her arms. "Are you cold? Do you want me to get you a sweater?"

"I'm okay," Laura said. I thought her bold little nipples looked adorable nosing that black top, and I longed to caress her breasts, but the guard was still watching us.

"What's his problem, do you think?" I whispered in Laura's ear.

"He does have quite the collection of cop hardware," Laura said. "Wonder what happens if he really has to pee in a hurry. By the way, the ladies room is amazing. Mirrors everywhere. If the men's room is anything like it, this place must spend a fortune on Windex."

"Maybe I'll check it out after all," I said. "I'll meet you back here in a few minutes, okay?"

"Better hurry," Laura advised. "I've got the lucky fever in my fingers."

I didn't really have to go to the bathroom. Instead I slipped into that dress boutique next door. I figured I'd buy the orange dress and surprise Laura with it later. But when I got to the rack, the orange dress wasn't there. I spent some minutes searching the shop. There were many similar dresses, blues and greens, reds and yellows, but the orange dress was gone. I didn't have the heart to get anything else.

I back-tracked to the casino. The guard eyed me warily as he spoke into his walkie-talkie. From a distance I spotted Laura at a roulette table. She had her wrists in front of her, floating in the air like delicate water birds not quite sure whether it was safe to land. Her hands urged the roulette ball as it bumped and bounced its way around the wheel. When the ball wobbled into place, Laura's fingers stiffened with thrill.

"Oh!" she said.

"Did you win?"

"I lost. I lost it all. Ten dollars. It feels so good." She hugged me. "Do you still love me? Do you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive."

"Don't be grumpy."

"I'm not grumpy."

"You look grumpy."

"Maybe I'm just tired."

"You do look tired. Tired and grumpy."

"Really, I'm fine."

"Ten dollars is a small price to pay for sunburn protection. The Sun Gods of Puerto Rico need their dollars."

"To pay for the Windex," I said.

"Oh, was the men's all mirrors, too?"

"Even the floors."

We began the long walk back to the room. "I'm glad you saw me lose it all," Laura said. "You should try it sometime. It makes you feel so free."

"I can't believe you're this happy over losing ten dollars."

"I'm easy," Laura said. "And it's not really the ten dollars I'm so happy about. While you were gone I called home. Everything's okay!"

We hugged in the hotel hallways. We managed to walk while hugging. "Don't forget that turn-down girl's chocolate waiting for us... you want light or dark?"

"I was thinking we'd share," Laura said. "Share and share alike-�it's a rule of Puerto Rico."

We paused beneath a painting of a jungle scene for one more kiss. "I like sharing you," I said. I couldn't wait to get back to our room. It was going to be so good.

"Me too," Laura said. "You're so sweet to me." The leopard in the painting was poised on the night-smoothed limb of a dark tree. Underneath a pair of frail deer grazed serenely on pale, moonlit grass.

"Look, tomorrow you have the Lighthouse Tour, and I'm signed up for golfing," I said. "You're sure you don't want me to come with you? I wouldn't mind. The lighthouse sounds good."

"No, I want you to play your golf. You said it's a nice course, right?"

"Yes, but I'd just as soon be with you."

"You're sweet. But we'll still have the Rain Forest together. Not to mention tonight, and the next night, and forever and ever after."

"You're sure?"

"I'm positive."

We were about to turn down the final corridor which led to our room. Music ambled around the adjacent corner� snazzy sax and snare-�probably from one of the out-of-the- way lounges. "Sounds yummy," Laura said. "Shall we see what it is?"

"I'm am pretty tired," I said. "It's been a long day."

"Just for awhile," Laura said.

"I just don't feel..."

"Okay," Laura said. "I can tell you're a sleepy head. My dear sweet sleepy head. How about if I just check it out. You go on to the room, and I'll be there in not too long. Okay?"

Back in the room I showered quickly, then I arranged the six little votive candles around the room. I'd smuggled the candles in my shaving kit, and the frail wicks didn't cooperate. Maybe it was that ceiling fan. It took me six matches to light them all. The small flames danced to the fan's easy rhythm; I was sure Laura's skin would look especially lovely in this light. My hands tried to remember the feel of her, but even the goosebumps of a moment ago eluded me. Next I tried to recall the tone and timbre of her sighs. Something was wrong with my memory. All I could hear was the endless whir of the ceiling fan. Three or four times I verged on getting dressed, going out and finding her. I had half-dreams of her dancing to the flames of my little lights, and somewhere along the line, as I lay atop the pulled down bedcovers, the dreams turned real.

"You were so soundly asleep, I didn't have the heart to wake you," Laura said at breakfast the next morning.

"I had strange dreams, some of them were bad�maybe you should have wakened me."

"Not more overturned automobiles?"

"No. Worse in a way. At the start you were dancing."

"Do I dance that badly?" Laura affected a pretend hurt. She looked so fresh. Scrubbed and pink and ready.

"No. You were beautiful. You were dancing in golden flickers of light. Your breasts were bare. Your bottom was bare. Round and round you swirled. Golden and glorious and beautiful. Your dancing was gloriously beautiful. It must have been the candles I lit."

"Candles?" Laura poured some more cream in her coffee. She glanced about with uncharacteristic nervousness. Maybe she was bothered that the waiters might overhear my homage to her bare breasts and bottom.

"This breakfast is really good, isn't it?" I asked. "Do you want some more orange juice?"

"Was I dancing with anyone? In your dream?"

"I don't know. Probably. You seemed to be dancing for someone."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Probably no one I know."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give you bad dreams."

"No, that wasn't the bad part. At least I don't think so. I liked watching you dance."

"What was the bad part?"

"The bad part was that after the dance you sat at a little table off in the corner. You were sitting with someone, with two or three someones. Guys, I guess, but I didn't know who they were. One of them may have nuzzled your neck. But that wasn't the bad thing."

Laura sliced a dark little sausage in half. The juice squirted out. She giggled. "These things are really good. Maybe we should have them at home sometime. They're probably not too good for you, though, right? And cantaloupe. I love cantaloupe."

"The thing that was bad was that you were smoking. You seemed to take such pleasure in it. Sucking the smoke so deep. It made me feel so bad."

"Oh, honey," Laura said.

"It was just a dream," I answered. "Probably those silly candles. So how was that party or whatever it was last night?"

"Oh, nothing much," Laura said.

"Teachers?"

"No, actually it was a mix of other guests and some of the hotel staff. Kind of informal and ad hoc."

"Ad hoc? Did you dance?"

"Oh, a little. Can you get me some more orange juice now?"

The golf was wonderful. Considering I hadn't played in months, I played exceptionally well. Maybe it was the course�the perfect fairways, the smooth but not too slippery greens. Every shot was into a vista. Sometimes I think there are no sounds as perfect as those of golf: everything from the gentle whipsnap of downswing to the click of contact to the satisfying rattle of ball into cup.

It helped that my playing partners weren't bad golfers. It helped that I was easily the best of our group. It helped that we never had to wait. There was no one in front of us, unless one counted the lizards. Everywhere iguanas were sunning themselves; like dour Scottish pros they perched on the grassy knolls around the tees and greens and at the edges of the long blue lagoons. Our tee shots they surveyed with impassive disdain. "Those lizardy things make me nervous," one of my playing partners confessed after we'd finished four holes. "I'd like to slice one open, see what's inside."

"Third world circuitry," I quipped. As if he'd overheard us, one of the creatures waddled away; he looked like a little pig the way his bottom waggled as he walked, and I had to laugh. Relaxed, I ripped a long drive down the left side of the fairway to this short par five. The ball rolled and rolled, ending up in the crook of the dogleg, a four iron or so from the elevated green. I could see the corner of a pond guarding the approach, and a cluster of trees blocked my view of the flag, but it never really occurred to me not to go for it. My shot took off low but climbed enough to clear the trees. Had it not been my first time on the course, had I known that the green was so shallow, that the drop-off to the pond in front was so severe, and that the fall-away to the left and rear were no less steep, maybe I would not have risked such a shot. Maybe I would have played it safe out to the right. But when I climbed the hill, there was my ball, sitting up so plump and pretty and proud of itself on the edge of the green, gleaming white in the midday sun, thirty feet or so from the hole. My eagle putt lipped out, but it didn't matter. That shot made my day. Afterwards I hit every shot almost as well. Golf in heaven couldn't be much better. For the day I ended up three over par, easily my best round since college. I couldn't wait to tell Laura.

She wasn't back from the Lighthouse Tour. Our room had been made up. The silver box of chocolates rested on the outer pillow, the two chocolates still snug in their sectioning. I was tempted to try one: on the golf course we hadn't stopped for lunch, and I was slightly hungry. Going on four-thirty, already. The lighthouse tour should have been back by three. I took a slow shower, then lay down on the made-up bed with Another Roadside Attraction for company. I'd read this novel in college, and now I was falling in love with Amanda's clitoris all over again.

By six Laura still hadn't returned. I wasn't hungry anymore, just worried. I put on some clothes. Better leave a little note.

Dear Laura,

If I'd known you were going to be this late I'd have considered some golf course lizard for lunch. Are you lost? I'm going to look for you. Where are you hiding? I'll be back here by seven.

Love, Mat

PS I had a good time golfing. Almost got an eagle!

story by Mat Twassel
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